when in doubt go to the stats
Nov. 1st, 2010 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhSo I decided to see, in terms of words, exactly how I stack up with the writing of the ladies and the characters of color, and given how much Rymon and Kirk/McCoy I've written, the answer is not too shabby. (And then, of course, because I'm geeky like that, I looked a bunch of other stuff.)
I've written a little over 100 fics and 600,200 words, not counting stuff not officially posted yet in my journal like comment fics I haven't cleaned up yet, that sort of thing. I did it in the most extreme way, where I only counted the primary pairing, even though in my mind secondary pairings count and are important and all that.
(I divvied up three fics that I felt truly had more than one prominent ship: Eight Ways from Sunday has four ships, A Dream That Could Not Last three, Some People Ain't Me two. So I divided the words equally to come up with these stats. The three fics I called "multi" were Lily & the Marauders, One Big Circle, and To Match Her Eyes, though only the latter is really talking about a polyamorous relationship.)
These percentages are of words, not fics.
I suppose the question is, does that 41% count for anything? Certainly it wasn't in particularly prominent ships, but then, there are no hugely prominent ships with CoC's, or femslash, though there are a few prominent white het ships like Harry/Hermione.
So how are we judging people? For surely we are. We're making lists and shouting about the lack of fic and looking askance at those writing in prominent slash ships, presuming that anyone who writes one surely isn't writing anything else. But of course that isn't true, can't be true. I know there are those who only write white boy slash—in fact only ever write the hot slash pairing of the moment—but I don't think those people are all of us. And some of us writing white boy slash are just writing pairings that we love, that aren't popular, don't get panels at con.txt, like my own Ryan/Simon (or Seamus/Dean for that matter, though at least I get black boy points for that one). But obviously I feel defensive no matter what, and I'm not the only one.
I'd hate to think that my writing should only be prominent white boy slash (for which I get rewarded by the fangirl masses) or non white boy slash (for which I get rewarded by the social justice crew). I honestly believe in people writing more about women and characters of color. I believe in rewarding it when it happens and encouraging others to write it. But I'm not sure how much I want to make big glancing attacks against any hot white boyslash ship as The Reason Other Things Aren't Written. The problem is systemic and so much larger than that. While we can combat it one writer at a time, we might want to acknowledge those one writers at a time, or at least that a lot of those writers, like myself, have written a lot of things, only some of which is the Whiteboy Slash Pairing of the Nanosecond.
As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kalichan quoted in the comments of my previous entry, I am large, I contain multitudes. I would hope that we all can be generous enough to grant that our fellow fandom writers might be equally diverse.
I've written a little over 100 fics and 600,200 words, not counting stuff not officially posted yet in my journal like comment fics I haven't cleaned up yet, that sort of thing. I did it in the most extreme way, where I only counted the primary pairing, even though in my mind secondary pairings count and are important and all that.
(I divvied up three fics that I felt truly had more than one prominent ship: Eight Ways from Sunday has four ships, A Dream That Could Not Last three, Some People Ain't Me two. So I divided the words equally to come up with these stats. The three fics I called "multi" were Lily & the Marauders, One Big Circle, and To Match Her Eyes, though only the latter is really talking about a polyamorous relationship.)
These percentages are of words, not fics.
- 66% boyslash / 25% het / 7% girlslash / 2% multi
- 18% features a character of color in the main pairing—7% CoC boyslash, 2% CoC girlslash, 9% CoC het
- 51% Idol / 27% HP / 17% Trek / 5% Other
- 51% of the total are AU fics (Trek and Idol)
- Over 200,000 words of Rymon
- And so the number you are looking for: 59% of the words I have written were white boy slash
- But 41% of those words weren't!
I suppose the question is, does that 41% count for anything? Certainly it wasn't in particularly prominent ships, but then, there are no hugely prominent ships with CoC's, or femslash, though there are a few prominent white het ships like Harry/Hermione.
So how are we judging people? For surely we are. We're making lists and shouting about the lack of fic and looking askance at those writing in prominent slash ships, presuming that anyone who writes one surely isn't writing anything else. But of course that isn't true, can't be true. I know there are those who only write white boy slash—in fact only ever write the hot slash pairing of the moment—but I don't think those people are all of us. And some of us writing white boy slash are just writing pairings that we love, that aren't popular, don't get panels at con.txt, like my own Ryan/Simon (or Seamus/Dean for that matter, though at least I get black boy points for that one). But obviously I feel defensive no matter what, and I'm not the only one.
I'd hate to think that my writing should only be prominent white boy slash (for which I get rewarded by the fangirl masses) or non white boy slash (for which I get rewarded by the social justice crew). I honestly believe in people writing more about women and characters of color. I believe in rewarding it when it happens and encouraging others to write it. But I'm not sure how much I want to make big glancing attacks against any hot white boyslash ship as The Reason Other Things Aren't Written. The problem is systemic and so much larger than that. While we can combat it one writer at a time, we might want to acknowledge those one writers at a time, or at least that a lot of those writers, like myself, have written a lot of things, only some of which is the Whiteboy Slash Pairing of the Nanosecond.
As
kalichan quoted in the comments of my previous entry, I am large, I contain multitudes. I would hope that we all can be generous enough to grant that our fellow fandom writers might be equally diverse.
